Most players think hustle is a personality trait. You either have it or you don't. Wrong. Hustle is a skill. You can practice it, just like a jump shot. Watch Villanova. Nobody on that floor is waiting to see if the ball bounces their way. They go get it. They get on the floor, dive into the bench, and take a charge from a bigger player. And every time one guy does it, the next guy does it too. That's the part most people miss: hustle is contagious. You can't talk a team into playing hard. Somebody has to go first. Coaches notice, too. They'll forgive a missed shot. What they won't forget is a player who stood and watched a loose ball roll out of bounds. Nobody gets better at something they don't take pride in. So take pride in doing more than your share. Be the player who goes first. #BasketballIQ #HustleIsASkill #PGCBasketball

Most players think being a perfectionist is the problem. It isn't. Chasing perfection is good. What hurts you is not being able to live with the misses that come on the way there. If one turnover ruins your whole game, perfectionism is limiting you. But if you've stopped caring about the details, that's worse. When good becomes acceptable, great becomes unachievable. The best players want the perfect pass, the perfect cut and the perfect decision. They also know they'll fail a hundred times trying to get there, and they keep going anyway. So hold yourself to the highest standard, and understand that failing is part of reaching it. #PGCBasketball #BasketballIQ #PlayerDevelopment

Dick DeVenzio closed Think Like a Champion with this: "I believe the athlete who thinks like a champion is much more likely to perform like a champion and actually be a champion." He put thinking first on purpose. Roster spots aren't won when the season starts. They're earned by habits built long before anyone is watching. The players who earn a coach's trust in September are the same ones still earning it in January — because their habits aren't temporary. They've become who they are. That's why the tryout never really ends. Every practice is a tryout for playing time. Every game is a tryout for next season's role. Every season is a tryout for the next level. Your parents might not notice you cutting corners. Your friends in the stands won't either. Your coach will. Every time. Every action you take is a vote for the person you want to become. What habit got you on the roster in September that you'll still be doing in week eight? Click the link to read the blog - bit.ly/4xzQRkp

Eyes Sell Lies. Most guards look right where they're about to pass. That's not court vision — that's a gift to the defense. You don't even have to guess what a guard like that is doing. Just watch his eyes. Great guards do the opposite. They stare one way and go another. They sell the lie before the ball ever moves — and by the time the defense reacts, it's already too late. Your eyes are a weapon on the court. Most players never learn to use them. Look off. Sell it. Make the read nobody saw coming. #PGCBasketball #BasketballIQ #PointGuardIQ

Let's be honest about something: you're probably not going to out-athlete everyone at the next level. Almost nobody does. The players who keep advancing are the ones defenders can't predict — a live dribble, eyes up, three options at once. That's a skill. Most players go their entire careers without ever being taught it. We made a free 3-part video series so you don't have to be one of them

Why does your shot feel automatic in warmups and hesitant in games? It's not nerves. It's mechanics that break down under fatigue and pressure — because they were never built to hold up there in the first place. That's fixable. And it starts with understanding why your shot works, not just repeating it. We made a free video series that walks you through it.

Everyone watching this calls it "ball movement." That's the surface-level read. Look closer: every extra pass forces a defender to close out on the move — off balance, feet not set, a half-step behind the read he needs to make. That's not luck. That's vision, earned one pass before the shot ever goes up. The best passers aren't hunting the open man. They're hunting the defender who has to work the hardest — and making him pay for it. Be the smartest player on the floor.

"I want to get this right every time." Sounds like a good standard. It's actually a ceiling. Workouts let you control the speed — so perfect reps feel possible. Games don't slow down for anybody. The moment the pace picks up, the player who's only ever practiced getting it right freezes the first time he doesn't. Failure isn't the thing blocking your potential. Fear of it is. Embrace it. Pursue it. That's the only way to find out how good you actually are. #ThinkTheGame

Dick DeVenzio devoted an entire chapter of Think Like a Champion to picking a seat. "The seat you pick says a lot about you and the person you have decided to be, whether you realize it or not." Swap "seat" for "spot in the layup line" and the lesson lands the same at tryouts. Before a single shot goes up, you've already told the coach something. How early you arrived. How you carried yourself through the door. Whether your earbuds stayed in until the last possible second. Whether you nodded when he corrected you — a gesture DeVenzio thought was important enough to earn its own chapter in STUFF Good Players Should Know: "Just a slight tilt of recognition and eye contact that says, 'I've got it, Coach.'" Nobody puts a checkmark next to "nodded at coach today" on a stat sheet. Every coach keeps track anyway. The first three minutes of tryouts don't create your reputation. They reveal it. What will your first three minutes say about you? click the link to read the blog: bit.ly/4rhSzWi

Everybody wants to be a "playmaker." Almost nobody wants to do what makes playmaking possible. Watch Kelsey Plum. Those passes aren't generosity. They're leverage. Score first. Become a threat the defense can't leave alone. That's what forces the help. The help opens the paint. The open paint is what hands you a teammate to find. You don't score instead of making plays. You score so the play is even there to make. Stop rehearsing passes nobody has to respect yet. Go become the problem the defense has to solve first — the rest takes care of itself.

Okay. How many were game shots? At game speed? Off the moves you actually use? Tracked, so you know if you're better than last Tuesday? Untracked reps feel like work. They're mostly just sweat. We put together a free vault of shooting drills — 10 of them timed and goal-driven, so every session has a score and every score has a story.

How to help your players get to the next level and reach their potential... -Ep. 670

Mindset is a habit. It shows up every Monday whether you feel like it or not. That's the whole idea behind Monday Mindset: one short video from PGC Owner Mano Watsa at the start of every week. One idea about how champions think — at school, in sports, in life. Two minutes, tops. Small input. Repeated. That's how thinking changes.

Everyone loves the guy who claims he gives 100 percent. We don't. We look for the athlete who gives an honest 87 percent, who knows it, and who is constantly trying to add 1 percent here and 1 percent there. Why? Because the 100 percenter has quit thinking. He figures he already does everything. There's a certain complacency in that. But the athlete asking "What could I add here? Is there some way to do this just a little bit better?" — that athlete never stops improving. Champions don't get 20 percent better at one thing. They get 1 percent better at twenty things. Little habits. Stacked up. Over and over. Until suddenly the gains take you to another level. Nothing dramatic. Nothing you'd notice in a single practice. Just a relentless collection of small improvements the average player can't be bothered with. It's always possible to do a little better. So — what's your 2 percent today?

The Gators open practice with a game where the dribble doesn't exist. One minute. Offense tags as many defenders as possible. Ball movement only. Dick DeVenzio would have loved this. In STUFF Good Players Should Know, he wrote: "You can slow it down and set it up with a pass. You can get on balance without dribbling. You can think better when you DON'T have the ball and put more pressure on the defense, too." Take the dribble away and there's nowhere to hide. You can't pound the ball while you decide. You have to catch on balance, see the floor early, and talk — because the ball can only move as fast as your teammates know where you're going. DeVenzio called go-nowhere dribbles "P-dribbles" and warned that every needless bounce means fewer perfectly timed passes and fewer teammates willing to cut. Florida's tag game trains the opposite habit: the ball never stops, so the players never stop. The dribble is a tool. For most players, it's a crutch. What would your game look like if you couldn't dribble for one full minute?

Ask ten players what a coach is grading at tryouts, and nine will say scoring or athleticism. Dick DeVenzio had a different answer. In Think Like a Champion, he wrote that no athlete should touch a ball until they're in SCHAPE to play: Spirit. Communication. Hustle. Attitude. Precision. Enhancement. Six ingredients that rarely show up in a box score. Coaches see them constantly. "There's no such thing as quiet spirit." Spirit is noise — yelling and clapping when your feet hurt and the coach is irritated, not just when the crowd is going wild. Hustle isn't something you turn on for the big game. "You make it a part-time thing and it will desert you when you need it most." And precision? Cutting corners in practice becomes foot shuffles in games. Traveling violations. A toe on the line. Every sport has murky areas where lack of precision spells the difference between winning and losing. Here's the truth about tryouts: when two players have nearly identical skill, the one in SCHAPE gets the jersey. Talent gets you noticed. SCHAPE gets you trusted. Which of the six are you avoiding? Click link to read full article: bit.ly/4h2pjxX

Plenty of players get outrun and out-jumped every night and still can't be stopped — because they see the play before it happens. Being unstoppable is a reading problem, not an athleticism problem. And reading the game can be taught. We put three of those lessons into a free video series: the shooting mindset, finishing against bigger defenders, and passing off the dribble.

Nice advice. Useless advice. Confidence isn't something you talk yourself into on the way to the gym. It's evidence. It's your body knowing the shot is going in because you've built the mechanics that make it true. We put together a free video series on the shooting techniques NBA and WNBA players use to generate effortless power — the kind that doesn't disappear in the fourth quarter. Get access now!

Two questions decide what kind of player you become. Are you on an endless pursuit to perfect your craft? And are you okay with failure along the way? Dick DeVenzio wrote about this exact tension: "We're all human. We all make mistakes. We can't be perfect at everything. But we can have an attitude that seeks perfection as a habit." And on the other half of the equation: "Failure plays a big part in sports and life. The very best stars in all sports experience many failures every day. That is the given. It's the 'now what?' that really matters." Failure isn't the opposite of perfection. It's the price of pursuing it. #pgcbasketball #hearitseeitdoit #growthmindset #sportspsychology #perfectionism

Are you really grateful? "Gratitude isn't shown with words. Gratitude is shown with actions." Think about the parents, coaches, or mentors who made sacrifices for you to be here. Does your effort prove that you appreciate them? Or would it show you walking back to lines and taking the opportunity for granted? Dick challenged players to understand that being in the gym isn't a right—it’s a privilege. If you say you are grateful, stop just saying it. Prove it with how you show up and make every single second count. #PGCBasketball #DickDeVenzio #Schmutz #Mindset #Gratitude #BasketballTraining